Residents of the Sunshine State frequently refer to Florida as “paradise.” Let’s dispel this myth. I reserve that designation for Hawaii, Fiji and other legitimately tropical wonderlands. I’ve been to a few. I know the difference. While trading skin-splitting cold winters for flesh-searing relentless summers makes some sense, there are downsides. Like constant traffic, legions of the elderly, revolting political ideologies, and hurricanes.
We are developing a post-traumatic response to the mention of names starting with “I” and the month of September. We have been assaulted twice in five years by that disturbing combination. I wrote about our encounter with Hurricane Irma in 2017, hoping never to repeat the experience. And for the most part, we did not. The generator and portable air conditioner we bought immediately after that sweltering early September event went unused, and ironically, we sold the AC unit six months ago. Having chosen to become “snowbirds” earlier last year, we were able to watch from afar as Hurricane Ian approach day by day with almost purposeful malevolence.
But our first concern was the path of the storm as it headed toward Cuba. Our son Eric was stationed near the U.S. Embassy in Havana. He was instructed to shelter in place in his house while the eye of the storm passed overhead at Category 2 strength. He did fine, but the island lost power and protests erupted to the west. Thank God for cell phones. We were able to receive updates before, during and after the storm.
The turn Ian took in order to pass over Cuba sent it into the energizing hot Gulf water beyond. That’s when things really intensified and “spaghetti” computer models tried to pin down a landfall location. Over-reliance on the “cone of uncertainty” by local and federal officials began to factor into delayed or inappropriate evacuation orders for the coming debacle. The eventual wanderings of the developing system fell well within the cone. Forecasts of storm surge and wind speeds were also reasonably accurate. To watch the graphics on the Weather Channel or those displayed by other meteorologists, a little red weed-whacker icon deceptively led the public to believe that the hurricane would hit or miss with the precision of a bowling ball on a well-oiled alley. In reality, the growing storm was a monstrous three hundred and fifty miles across, with an intense eye-wall that spun with the cutting power of a Cuisinart and passed directly over our house. But just outside of the eye is where the real destructive power dwells.
The period leading up to landfall was anxiety-provoking to the maximum. The storm crawled along at eight miles per hour for a week or more, changing course periodically and gaining strength to a Category 5 with winds in excess of 155mph. The plus side of that situation is that it granted residents time to prepare, stock up on supplies, board up windows…or leave. But in our increasingly “no one tells me what to do” society, people fought for supplies, ignored the warnings and suffered for it.
Multiple storms over the years with the potential to strike the southern Florida peninsula have strayed into the Gulf or up to the Panhandle. These “cry wolf” scenarios now result in procrastination or complacency. Even finely tuned projections resulted, as in the case of 2004’s Hurricane Charley, in mass evacuations from the predicted area of landfall to the location where the storm unexpectedly turned and struck. Ian was predicted to make landfall in Tampa. It eventually behaved more like the 2004 storm, coming ashore at Cayo Costa, a little barrier island we’ve taken our boat to a couple of times. Sustained winds were in excess of 150mph.
I’ve spoken to people who rode out the storm. As they describe the experience, their faces pale and elongate, a look similar to having eaten spoiled food. They describe the sound, “You know, the freight train sound they say tornadoes make? It was nine hours of that.” Terrifying. And as the front of the eye-wall passed, winds reversed and pummeled weakened objects from the opposite direction.
We watched in Illinois from four angles on remote web cams until the power went out on September 28th at 2:40pm. The electricity always seems to go out before things are all that bad. Perhaps they cut power to avoid transformer explosions and downed live wires. But from that point forward we watched on the news, reliant on idiots like The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore, who has made a name for himself and inspired others to stand outside in the worst available wind and rain. He was located in Punta Gorda, the town next to ours, where a strong sheltering building abutted a street suitable for a wide angle shot of him briefly exposing himself to the elements. One of these days a weather personality is going to take a stop sign to the head.
About the wind. I’ve written this before, but imagine, if you’re familiar with batting cages, the speed at which a “major league” throw is shot out of a pitching machine. The ball hisses and is hard to follow. Now almost double that. This is why you stay inside, put up storm shutters, and also why there is so much damage from wind-borne projectiles.
We returned to Florida more than a week after the storm to the ubiquitous sound of generators and chain saws. We live on a canal about thirteen feet above sea level. The predicted storm surge of 7-18 feet never materialized, but it is doubtful that the water would have reached levels anywhere near that by the time it reached us. The neighbor across the canal lost a section of sea wall perhaps thirty feet long. When water retreated due to the approaching storm (the tsunami effect) sixteen inches of rain came overland behind the wall, quickly eroded the supporting soil and undermined the concrete, collapsing it outward at the bottom. Their yard looks like a sinkhole.
Our new boat lift cover, a large blue vinyl canopy, was shredded and blown into and around the canal. People ask how our boat survived. It was fine, unlike the one submerged upside down a few houses away. The entire aluminum frame supporting the cover across the way detached and was wound like a twist tie around the wooden pilings at the base of our lift.
Unlike the Irma devastation I caused when I cut the screens from our pool cage to save the supporting metal frame, Ian took care of it for me. About half of the screens were blown out or shredded. As a result, the pool had a large brown stain where the uncirculated water allowed submerged leaves and branches to decompose. The fact that power was restored in ten days is a testament to the fleets of utility service trucks that swept the state. It was an organizational triumph.
We went without Internet and TV for about three weeks. Oh the horror! We were reduced to watching DVD sets of Combat and Gilligan’s Island. The former was a gift Jeanne bought her dad when he was sick. The latter I can’t justify. You never want to watch TV so badly as when you’re not able to. I realize these are first-world problems, but it’s pretty eye opening how reliant on web access we’ve become. Open enrollment for health insurance was happening, a simple process if you can complete it online. Ditto, paying bills. This is a sudden return to the 1980s. If you’ve ever endured a lengthy power outage, you likely found yourself entering a room and flipping on a light switch. Oh yeah, no power. We reflexively picked up our phones to research, “How tall was Vic Morrow?” But without Google, I proclaimed, “I don’t know ANYTHING!”
The next week was a series of Groundhog Days, cleaning up layers of debris on our property until the near-90-degree heat reduced us to staggering, drenched noodles. Four large pine trees along our southern border were stripped of almost all branches. Trees have a surprising number of branches as it turns out. They mostly fell on our yard, mixed with three colors of shingle fragments from roofs unknown, and had to be dragged to a growing brush pile the size of two minivans, near the street. Similarly, our large prickly pear cactus was just begging to be taken down by a hurricane. It tended to grow along a single plane, like a sail. I cut it down to a creature we now call “Stumpy McStumperton.” More vegetative matter for the pile.
Two trees were uprooted, and two of Jeanne’s favorite Queen Palms were pushed to a 45-degree angle. We attempted to upright, support and save them, losing one. God save the Queen!
We were blessed with a mostly dry house inside, though sections of soffit and a number of shingles were torn away and something heavy struck the roof, cracking the underlying plywood. The roof had to be replaced. Insurance claims mounted like blocks in a game of Jenga, an exercise that teaches patience…and disappointment. Hemorrhaging money flowed faster than our canal.
All of the above is for the benefit of those who have been asking how we fared. Incredibly well is the honest answer. A neighbor’s aged father got frightened and drove away from the relative safety of their house and died in flood water. Pool cages are destroyed, roofs ripped off and ceilings collapsed. If you watch the news, the people of Fort Myers Beach, Pine Island and other areas suffered death, isolation and catastrophic destruction resulting in total loss of property and homelessness that will take many years to recover from, if ever. An art-inspired little town called Matlacha (Matt La Shay) that was once featured on Beachfront Bargain Hunt is gone, just swept away.
So back to that paradise delusion. Why do we live here, rebuild and continue to sleep on train tracks that have an unpredictable schedule? I frequently cite the day after I came down to close on our house. The wind chill in Chicago was 25 below zero. I sat outside with a cup of coffee at a perfect 75 degrees, looking out over the sparkling blue pool at a flock of white migratory tropical birds winging down the canal. Jimmy Buffet played in the background. I nearly cried when it was time to go home. So, this isn’t paradise, but it’s only occasionally Hell.
😎
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